Harvest of Fury (33 page)

Calculations told her the baby would come in September. Her brothers would most certainly not be calm about her having a child out of wedlock, and she flinched from how Jordan would feel. It was all she could do, now, to bear the way he sometimes looked at her. As for Claybourne Frazier …

She bit her lip, Nothing for it. James would have to know. Should she tell Tally yet?

She shrank from doing anything. Belen, any of the vaqueros, would carry a message for her. Then James would come. They would stand before the madonna in the
sala
, just as she'd always planned, and be married the right way.

But it wouldn't be the right way. James would come to her chained, not free. The days passed. Her breasts ached. She ate dry bread and did not send for him.

News had leaked out that General Stoneman was recommending that the half posts in Arizona be abandoned, including Camp Crittenden. Governor Safford went to Stoneman's headquarters at Sacaton to urge an all-out war on the Apaches. Stoneman said his soldiers were doing all they could and that he was under pressure from advocates of Grant's peace policy to try to induce the Indians, by peaceful means, to leave off their raiding. Completely disgusted with Stoneman, Safford went on to Washington early in March to plead for a stronger commander and more protection.

Raids and killings seemed to increase. For the first time cattle were run off from Rancho del Socorro. Mangus's long shadow was starting to dwindle. On March 18 the Hughes ranch near Crittenden was attacked, one man killed and much property destroyed.

Tom Gardner, whose ranch had been raided innumerable times and who kept sentinels on guard after the style of Pete Kitchen, stopped by the Socorro at suppertime and laughed heartily when Talitha remonstrated with him for being out alone in such dangerous times.

“Lord love you, ma'am, didn't I carry an Apache bullet under my heart for a couple of years till the Crittenden sawbones dug it out? I'm not marked to die by the heathen—just to be stolen blind.”

“They like your beef and horses,” Marc agreed, pouring his neighbor a stiff drink.

“They sure do.” Gardner took a deep swallow, sighed, and chuckled grimly. “I'd gladly make a treaty with 'em; if they'd leave my place alone, I'd give them a quarter of all I raise and a quarter of my livestock increase. But they've outsmarted themselves. They've taken my work teams and I can't raise as much for them as I could have otherwise.”

As in the war days, a watch was posted during the daylight hours and weapons kept close at hand. After some consultation the El Charco people decided to stay at the south ranch but hired several more vaqueros, as did the home ranch.

Cinco was among these. He hadn't gone prospecting with Patrick this time, preferring to work with cattle when he wasn't hunting mountain lions. He was already so well known for his skill in killing those elusive big cats that ranchers in northern Sonora as well as southern Arizona who were losing foals or calves to a lion who'd developed a taste for them called on Cinco and his dogs.

At sixteen Cinco had a man's height, but his face retained its childish roundness and slightly snubbed nose. He had a shy, sweet smile. The muscles of his strong young neck swelled against the gold chain of the small crucifix Cat had given him many years before.

“I still wear your present,” he told her, dark eyes luminous as he gazed down at her. “Do you have my blue bird and whistle?”

“I gave the whistle to little Shea,” she said somewhat guiltily. “But I keep the blue bird in my window.” She didn't tell him she'd put the turquoise bird up by his father's cross.

She hadn't seen Cinco in almost a year and felt awkward with him. He was half her brother, yet that was not what caused the deepened timbre of his voice when he spoke to her. When he learned she was pregnant, what would happen to the adoration in his look? She
must
send for James; there was no other way.

Covering her desperation with a light laugh, she said, “I must get you a new chain. That one is too tight.”

He said, “I would change it only for another one from you.”

James came that night after supper, ate hungrily of the jerked meat stew and tamales Cat and Talitha put before him, and asked for a fresh horse. He needed to be on his way that night and by dawn be as far from Camp Crittenden as possible.

Lt. Claybourne Frazier, on the trail of stolen mules and horses, had stopped to rest his command at the mine and had recognized James. He'd demanded that James help track the marauders, and when he'd refused, the officer put him under arrest.

“I think he'd have found an excuse to shoot me before we got back to Crittenden,” James said wryly. “Anyway, last night I got away on one of his horses. I can't go back to the mine. Even if he didn't look for me there every time he had a chance, he made me sound to the miners like a traitorous half-breed who might betray them any time it was to my benefit.”

“You can stay here,” said Talitha. “Marc can take it all the way up to General Stoneman and the governor if Frazier tries to bother you.”

James shrugged. “There's not much they can do if he's already shot me as an escaped prisoner and horse thief. With all the raiding going on around here, I don't want to give your neighbors any reason for hard feelings. I'm going up to Camp Grant.”

“That's where the Aravaipa Apaches have been coming in,” said Mare. “Apparently they want peace if the government will feed them and guarantee them a safe place to live.”

James nodded. “I think I could do some good there as an interpreter. But from what the soldiers said, people' are starting to blame them for raids by other Indians, mostly Chiricahuas. If any Aravaipa are sneaking off to join such groups, maybe I can convince them they must stop before they endanger the whole nation.”

“Sounds worth trying,” Marc approved. “But when you've done what you can, come back to us, James. This is your home. Frazier's going to get a sharp lesson if he keeps trying to commandeer you.”

James said nothing, but the stubborn set of his head and shoulders told Cat more plainly than words that he was determined not to cause his white family trouble. It was a poor time to give him her news, even if it hadn't looked as though she weren't going to have a moment alone with him. In a few months he could see with his eyes, but by then so could everyone. What should she do?

Talitha persuaded him to lie down and sleep an hour, promising to wake him. During that hour she and Cat packed saddlebags with clothing and food, Belen selected the best of the young horses, and Marc readied a bedroll, wrote a letter to the Camp Grant commander, Lt. Royal Whitman, and got out a Spencer carbine, a Remington .55 cap-and-ball six-shooter, and plenty of ammunition.

In spite of the busy preparations, the hour was an interminable torture to Cat. As they finished filling the second bag with
pinole
, jerky, dried fruit, and nuts, Talitha's clear eyes looked into Cat's with understanding much deeper than pity.

“Would you like to tell James it's time to go?”

Nodding, Cat hurried through the
sala
to the bedroom that had been her parents' and now was. Marc's and Talitha's. James lay face down on the serape rug, not the bed. Cat leaned over him, stroking his black hair.

“James,” she murmured. “James,
querido
.”

He stirred, long eyelashes lifting from his cheek. She felt she would drown in the blueness of his eyes, shocking in that brown Indian face. “
Gídí
.” He smiled, and laid his hand on the side of her neck where she felt her pulse leaping as if to escape her veins and run in his.

“Oh, James,” she whispered, fighting tears. “Let me go with you!”

“To Camp Grant?” Astounded, he sat up and took her in his arms. “Caterina, you know it would never do. You don't belong in an Indian camp.”

“But—”
I'm going to have your baby
, she wailed silently.

He rocked her gently against him. “Let me help the Aravaipa settle,
gídí
. Maybe I can persuade some of the wild bands to come in if they see it's safe.”

When she would have protested, he kissed her till they both were trembling. Drawing back, he said huskily, “Prove to me that you're a woman, Caterina. Let me do this thing for my people.”

She felt as if she were strangling. “How—how long?”

“Two, three months, maybe a little more. Be patient in this,
gídí
, and I'll believe you're a woman. We'll marry; even if, being a half-breed, I have to take you to Mexico to do it, and then we'll build a
jacal
in some cañon and raise horses, mules, and children just as stubborn.”

How could she try to keep him from doing what he could to end the slaughter between his people and hers? A few months—She could wear loose clothes. And he'd be marrying her gladly, not because he had to.

Taking his strong-boned face between her hands, she kissed him. “Hurry up with whatever you have to do at Camp Grant and come back to me! I begin to understand why Mother called Father a burro! Are all men so stubborn?”

“They are if they're men.” He rose, pulling her with him, and held her in a last long embrace that almost made her cling to him, whisper the truth. As he straightened, he watched her proudly. “I love you,
gídí
. You are my woman.”

She put her hands behind her so he couldn't see her drive her fingernails into her palms. “It's time you rode,” she said:

A few days later Cinco burst in with frightful news told him by troopers who'd stopped to water their mounts. A party of Mexicans returning to Sonora after a celebration in Tucson had been wiped out near the border, and Leslie Wooster, a young farmer-rancher living near Tubac, had been killed, along with his beautiful common-law wife, Trinidad Aguirre.

“I've worked in harvest for Don Leslie,” choked Cinco. “He was very good, very kind. And Doña Trinidad—always bright and laughing. They were beautiful together.” He passed his hand over his eyes. “How can this be, Don Marcos? Why does your government not protect your people?”

“The soldiers try, Cinco. But who can find Apaches in their own mountains?”

“The ones who did this may not be so far away,” returned Cinco darkly. “My people think the whites are big fools to feed those Apaches at Camp Grant. When the men say they're going on a hunt, does anyone think they might be hunting people and plunder?”

Cinco lived in the vaqueros' quarters, so Cat didn't think he knew about James's visit. Marc had thought it best to keep that as quiet as possible to lessen the chances of James's whereabouts leaking out to Frazier.

Looking up at the tall Papago youth, Marc spoke sternly. “You don't want to spread that kind of talk unless you know what you're talking about, son. If those Apaches stay put and prosper it could decide the others to come in for peace.”

“Peace!” Cinco's lips curled back from his teeth, stripping the hint of boyish softness from his face. “For three hundred years Apaches have lived by raiding my people, and the Pimas, and the Mexicans. You can't think, Don Marcos, that they'll stop now!”

“The government will feed them, teach them how to grow their food.”

Cinco laughed harshly, “Will you teach the hawk to plow with his talons, to sow grain and eat it?”

“The Aravaipa are cutting hay for the soldiers and are glad of the work and pay,” countered Marc. “You know well, Cinco, that many bands already plant and harvest crops. If the government will set aside lands where they won't be pushed out by settlers and give them a start in raising livestock, they could soon be living like anyone else.”

Cinco regarded him in alarmed pity. “Apaches don't like to raise stock. They steal and eat other people's.”

“That's not a law of nature, lad.”

Cinco shook his head. “Doña Trinidad …” His eyes blazed with hatred. “The only peaceful Apache is a dead one! With permission, Don Marcos, I will go hunting. I am angry. I must kill something.”

Scarcely waiting for Marc's reluctant nod, he strode out. In a moment they heard him whistling for his dogs. Cat started to go after him, but Talitha caught her arm.

“No use, dear. He's been raised pure Papago, to hate Apaches. And there certainly is reason.”

Cinco was Cat's brother; he had been a brown little boy with soft eyes. Now he was warrior age, a cunning killer of lions, and he hated Apaches. She prayed that he and James would never meet.

XVIII

The March 25
Arizona Citizen
listed Apache depredations for that month. Between the eighth and the twentieth there had been four separate attacks in southern Arizona, animals run off, property destroyed, and eight people killed, including Don Leslie and Doña Trinidad. Apaches had also attacked the mail rider between Tucson and Tubac, though they hadn't killed him. Charging that post commanders were dispensing rations to the murderers, editor John Wasson demanded, “Will the Department Commander longer permit the murderers to be fed by supplies furnished by the people's money?”

Leslie Wooster had had many friends in Tucson. His killing and that of his young, beautiful wife led to a public meeting. Some were in favor of waiting to see what help might come from Washington. Others wanted a citizens' militia to take the field as quickly as it could be organized. After argument that lasted far into the night, it was agreed to send a committee of five, headed by William Oury, to urge General Stoneman to do something about the increasing violence.

They found him on the Gila River a little way from the new town of Florence. Stoneman told them he had only enough horses to mount one cavalryman in five. He couldn't send more troops south, but he did promise constant patrols in the Santa Cruz Valley and along Sonoita Creek, and that Camp Crittenden wouldn't be closed down till at least after the harvest was in. Further, Stoneman thought there were enough men in Tucson and along the Santa Cruz and Sonoita to look after themselves.